All three carriers are increasingly focused on broadfband expansion, customer retention, and long-term network monetization
T-Mo subscriber, broadband growth – T-Mobile US once again outpaced rivals in postpaid and broadband additions, supported by its early move to 5G standalone and its ability to scale fixed wireless access faster than competitors.
Scale and profitability – Verizon remained the revenue leader and is pairing subscriber momentum with cost transformation and fiber expansion, while AT&T posted steady wireless gains alongside continued fiber buildout and bundling ambitions.
Broadband convergence – In a mature wireless market facing growing cable bundle pressure, all three carriers are increasingly focused on broadband expansion, customer retention, and long-term network monetization, not just phone subscriber share.
The U.S. wireless market’s three biggest players — T-Mobile US, Verizon, and AT&T — all finished 2025 with solid financial performance, but the competitive picture remains shaped by one key differentiator: growth versus scale.
T-Mobile US continued to separate itself through industry-leading postpaid and broadband additions, while Verizon and AT&T delivered higher overall revenue bases and steady profitability. Together, the results highlight a mature market where subscriber gains, broadband expansion, and long-term network monetization are increasingly central to carrier strategy.
T-Mobile extends growth lead
T-Mobile closed 2025 with another standout quarter in customer growth, reinforcing its position as the industry’s top share gainer. In Q4, the carrier delivered 2.4 million total postpaid net customer additions, including 962,000 postpaid phone net adds and 261,000 postpaid net account additions. For the full year, T-Mobile posted 7.8 million postpaid net customer additions and 3.3 million postpaid phone net adds.
Broadband remained another major engine of growth. T-Mobile reported 558,000 total broadband net additions in Q4, including 495,000 5G broadband adds, ending the quarter with 8.5 million 5G broadband customers.
On the investor call, T-Mobile President and CEO Srini Gopalan argued that the company’s continued subscriber momentum is rooted in its early network architecture decisions — particularly its head start in 5G standalone deployment. The carrier transitioned to a standalone 5G core years ahead of its rivals, which executives say has translated into a meaningful performance and experience advantage for customers. “We moved to a 5G standalone core back in 2021. Our competitors got there sometime in 25,” he said. “That’s a three-to-four-year lead on the quality of our 5G network.
That early mover position has helped support T-Mobile’s ability to scale both postpaid growth and its rapidly expanding 5G fixed wireless broadband business, which continues to add customers at a pace unmatched by its peers.
Financially, T-Mobile generated $24.33 billion in Q4 revenue and $88.31 billion for full-year 2025. Service revenues climbed sharply, up 10% year-over-year in Q4 to $18.70 billion, while full-year service revenues rose 8% to $71.31 billion. Net income totaled $2.10 billion in Q4 and $11.0 billion for the year.
Looking ahead, the carrier guided for 900,000 to 1.0 million postpaid net account additions in 2026, alongside $37.0–$37.5 billion in core adjusted EBITDA.
Broadband as a key battleground
While T-Mobile continues to lead in subscriber momentum, Verizon remains the largest carrier by revenue, reporting $138.2 billion in full-year 2025 operating revenue, up from $134.8 billion in 2024. Verizon posted $17.6 billion in net income and $50.0 billion in adjusted EBITDA for the year.
In Q4, Verizon delivered its strongest postpaid phone performance in years, with 616,000 postpaid phone net additions — its best quarterly result since 2019. Broadband also remained a priority, with 372,000 total broadband net additions, driven by 319,000 fixed wireless access adds, pushing its FWA base beyond 5.7 million customers.
The carrier is also expanding its fiber reach, with Verizon noting that its Frontier acquisition has helped extend fiber access to more than 30 million homes and businesses, strengthening its long-term convergence strategy.
At the same time, Verizon’s leadership framed 2025 as part of a broader operational reset. CEO Daniel Schulman said the company’s transformation will be driven by “bold and meaningful actions” as it executes what he described as “essentially a turnaround story.” He emphasized a sweeping organizational overhaul aimed at eliminating redundancies and improving efficiency.
“We are creating a new Verizon, one that does not settle for anything less than being the best,” Schulman said, adding that the company is building “an in-year war chest of $5 billion in OpEx savings,” with a substantial portion coming from headcount reductions, alongside marketing efficiencies, real estate rationalization, and contract renegotiations.
Schulman also pointed to AI as a central pillar of Verizon’s next phase, stating that the carrier aims to become “an AI-first company, deploying AI at scale” to optimize operations and “fundamentally reshape the customer experience.”
AT&T, meanwhile, posted $125.6 billion in full-year 2025 revenue, up roughly 2.7% year-over-year, and $33.5 billion in Q4 revenue. The carrier reported $4.2 billion in Q4 net income and $11.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA, while full-year net income reached $23.4 billion, boosted by the gain from its DIRECTV transaction.
AT&T’s subscriber growth was more modest but steady, with 421,000 postpaid phone net additions in Q4 and more than 1.5 million for the full year. On the broadband side, AT&T continued to lean into fiber expansion, adding 283,000 fiber customers in Q4 and surpassing 32 million fiber locations passed nationwide.
John Stankey, chairman and chief executive, said on the earnings call that the company expects to reach more than 40 million fiber locations by the end of the year, adding: “Beyond 2026, we plan to expand our fiber reach by approximately five million locations annually through the end of this decade. We expect this to drive rapid expansion of our opportunity to sell fiber and 5G together to both households and businesses at unmatched scale.”
Carrier strategies converge around broadband and bundling
Even as T-Mobile leads in subscriber growth and Verizon and AT&T maintain larger revenue bases, the carriers’ strategies are increasingly shaped by the same shift: U.S. wireless competition is no longer just about phones, but about broadband-driven convergence.
T-Mobile is using its early 5G standalone advantage to accelerate postpaid gains and scale fixed wireless broadband. Verizon is combining scale with operational transformation and fiber expansion to defend share in a market facing growing cable bundle pressure. And AT&T continues to anchor its strategy in fiber buildout and cross-selling fiber and 5G together.
In this market, growth still differentiates, but broadband bundles and multi-product relationships are becoming the central competitive battleground.
